Muslims Must Seize Every Opportunity to Reform Their Madrasas

November 20, 2017

Yogi Adityanath may be doing this for political reasons, but why should we blindly oppose the introduction of a superior quality of textbooks in our madrasas?

Photo credit: Indian Express

Recently, the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh announced that henceforth madrasa students would study NCERT textbooks instead of their regular run of the mill curriculum. Also, sometime back, one of its ministers stated that madrasas should impact the study of science and mathematics instead of teaching them subjects which are irrelevant in the present age and time.

How should we look at these announcements which ostensibly could lead madrasas on the path of modernization? Yogi’s government, through its actions and polemics, has not been very kind to the Muslims. In fact, he comes from a party which refused to give even a single ticket to Muslim candidates in Assembly elections. The needless controversy over the Taj Mahal created by BJP and left unresolved by the chief minister is still fresh. Understandably then, Muslims will have suspicion about the Uttar Pradesh government’s intention behind introducing NCERT textbooks in madrasas. It is entirely possible that the motive behind such a move is to generate fresh controversy. But can we also see this as an opportunity to discuss and debate what is rotting within our madrasa system?

It is common knowledge that the present state of madrasas leaves much to be desired. The education imparted in these seminaries is outmoded and medieval; there are books of logic (Mantiq) on which students spend hours but hardly get anything out of it. Of course, there was a time when madrasas were able to produce not just master theologians but also some of the finest philosophers, mathematicians and even architects. But after 1857, madrasas transformed themselves into exclusive centres of religious learning. The new Dars e Nizami syllabus initiated by Deoband and subsequently followed by all madrasas in South Asia, concentrated solely on the study of Quran and Hadis.

Post-independence, some states organized madrasas through various state madrasa Boards and tried to rectify the situation by introducing modern subjects. But there were others, what are called azad madrasas, whose numbers are much more as compared to the state controlled madrasas, but who still continue to teach a moribund and irrelevant curriculum to this day. While the state Board madrasas struggle with lack of qualified teachers, the azad madrasas perhaps need to overhaul their whole syllabus to make it relevant to the needs of the present times.

The Sachar Committee report and even before that the Gopal Singh Commission Report of 1986, have reminded us time and again that Muslims are an educational backward minority. The current educational data suggests that the problem of Muslim educational deficit starts at the primary stage itself where schools are unable to retain Muslim students due to high drop-out rate. This has some linkage with madrasas. In states like Uttar Pradesh for example, madrasas run parallel to the school system. Thus a child going to a madrasa will never be able to simultaneously experience the joys of schooling. Wouldn’t it be better if madrasa timings were adjusted in such a way that a Muslim child is able to simultaneously access both? This simple step will help improve the retention levels of Muslim children in schools.

The curriculum needs to change to reflect the changing needs of society. After all, what is the use of such an Alim, who does not know anything about modern history, politics or even geography? Even if the Alim wants to preach about Islam, he has to do it in this world and must have at least some knowledge of how the world operates today. Otherwise, we can only expect the likes of Ulema who masquerade as knowledgeable people only in television studios. Muslim community must realise that today’s madrasa system is doing a great disservice to their aspirations. There is a need to modernize these madrasas and introduce the study of modern subjects in them. We cannot have a situation where a Muslim religious leader is not aware of what is happening in the wider world. After all, if he is to provide service to religion, then it has to be done in this world itself. Therefore, understanding the world in all its complexities should be the primary concern of all education, including Islamic education.

It is also equally important to realise that lakhs of children are studying in these madrasas and the present state of affairs does not equip them to even understand the location of different countries on the world map. In the name of protecting of our tradition, are we not sacrificing the future of these Muslim children? Yogi Adityanath may be doing this for political reasons, but why should we blindly oppose the introduction of a superior quality of textbooks in our madrasas?

The rot within the madrasa system runs deep. Merely introducing modern textbooks is not going to stem the rot. After all, what are the madrasas going to do with these textbooks when there are hardly any teachers to teach them? A survey conducted by Hamdard Education Society found out that there were hardly any trained teachers in madrasas. What was pitiable was that in scores of madrasas, teachers who were teaching science and mathematics were not even qualified to teach these subjects. Moreover, only very few madrasas have availed the benefits of modernization of madrasa scheme and even their subjects have been added haphazardly to the curriculum.

The average madrasa student is already overburdened by the religious syllabus. Just going on adding modern subjects will only increase such a burden. Thus there needs to be a design as how we need to introduce these subjects and if possible how can we reduce the content of the religious curriculum. Without such open discussion about madrasas, nothing is going to become better. Muslim leaders must understand that neither the Congress, nor the Left or the BJP has done much for them. It is up to the Muslims therefore that they should seize all opportunity which has the potential for betterment of Muslim society.

Arshad Alam is a columnist with www.NewAgeIslam.com

Republished with permission of New Age Islam.

These are war crimes, says US delegation after visiting Rohingya camps in Bangladesh

November 20, 2017

The American lawmakers call on the premier came a day after they visited the Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar’s Kutupalang

A US delegation comprising of senatros and representatives of Congress meet with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at Ganabhaban on Sunday, November 19, 2017A US delegation comprising of senatros and representatives of Congress meet with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at Ganabhaban on Sunday, November 19, 2017. Focus Bangla

Visiting US lawmakers on Sunday dubbed “war crimes” the atrocities inflicted on Rohingyas by Myanmar security forces as they called on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina a day after visiting them in their makeshift refuge in Cox’s Bazar.

“It is like war crimes,” the prime minister’s press secretary Ihasnul Karim quoted the high-profile delegation’s leader Jeff Merkley as saying while talking to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at Gonobhaban.

US Senator Richard Durbin, Congresswomen Betty McCollum and Jan Schakowsky and Congressman David N Cicilline were among others included in the delegation accompanied by US ambassador in Dhaka Marcia Stephens Bloom Bernicat.

The press secretary said the senators told Sheikh Hasina that every country should condemn the crime and ethnic cleansing and were of the opinion that the crisis deserved more international attention as it was required for its resolution and sending the forcibly displaced people back to their homeland.

Ishsanul said the premier laid importance on implementation of the Kofi Annan report to resolve the Rohingya crisis.

“Out of sense we have taken decision to give shelter to these oppressed people of Myanmar and share our food with them if necessary,” the premier said.

But, Sheikh Hasina said, Bangladesh wanted next-door Myanmar to take back their nationals with “full security” while under an identification system over 5,00,000 of them were provided identity cards by now.

The US senators call on the premier came a day after the visited the Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar’s Kutupalang.

The senators, the press secretary said, appreciated the premier for her generous response to the challenge of bracing the Rohingyas and said the US was ready to provide all assistance to resolve the crisis.

They said the Rohingyas said they were very much pleased with Bangladesh government for giving them the shelter as they interacted with the ethnic minority people.

Senator Merkley said they gathered firsthand information from the persecuted people in the Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar while the description of persecution was “horrifying.”

PM’s advisor Dr Gowher Rizvi and Principal Secretary Dr Kamal Abdul Naser Chowdhury were present on the occasion.

Republished with permission from Dhaka Tribune.

Improved ratings? How Gujarat Babus in PMO “worked out” Strategy to Lobby with Washington Institutes: Insider

November 19, 2017

Did Narendra Modi’s top bureaucrats from the Gujarat cadre, currently in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), work out a well-planned strategy to lobby with three top international institutes, all headquartered in Washington, World Bank, Moody’s and Pew, for ensuring a sharp image make over of Modi ahead of the Gujarat elections, after all three last year seemed least cared to show India under Modi in good light?

It would seem so, if a top insider of Gujarat government is to be believed. According to this insider, he knows how at least one of the closest Modi aides, who is a Gujarat cadre retired IAS bureaucrat and has been one of the most trusted Modi men ever since the 2002 Gujarat riots, was the key person who worked out a complete plan to ensure that the three institutes change their “approach”.
‘
“Those who have been in the Gujarat government under Modi have had enough experience about how lobbying works in the US”, this insider, who did not wish to be identified, said, adding, “When Modi was Gujarat chief minister, top world consultants would be hired with the financial help of Indian American supporters of Modi in the US.”
Consultants hired not just included Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Ernst & Young and KPMG, all of whom helped Modi in getting publicity for his Vibrant Gujarat biennial global business summits, ensuing appointments with well-known business and political leaders across the world; they included one of the best known American lobbying firms, APCO Worldwide, whose white officials were even stationed in Gujarat and directly interact with Modi and his aides.

Hired by Modi in 2007, APCO established a contact point in Ahmedabad. Considered the largest known foreign agent of Israel, the reason behind Modi’s particularly rising popularity and larger than life image in 2013, ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, lay in “dedicated efforts” of this global Public Relations giant, founded in 1984 as a subsidiary of one of Washington’s premier law firms Arnold & Porter.

APCO has been offering “professional and rare expertise” to governments, politicians and corporations, and it’s expertise comes from a 70-odd member Advisory Council, which includes a former president, many lawmakers, administrators, bureaucrats and captains of industry from various parts of the world. It undertakes a range of activities meant to influence public opinion and government policy in favour of its “clients”.

Media reports say how the top firm in 2010 offered to start an image-improvement campaign for the US finance industry. It and handled grassroots campaign against smoking regulations for tobacco giant Philip Morris, worked to counter the harassment accusations against Hewlett-Packard Company’s CEO, as also Ford’s troubles with Firestone tyres. It also “helped” shield Kazakhstan’s President-for-life Nursultan Nazarbayev from attacks by his former son-in-law, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair gain support for his decision to enter the Iraq war.
Said to be directly involved with the American military-industrial complex and its war machine, in May 2003, APCO helped launched a task force to help American companies win contracts for the rebuilding of Iraq, led by a former US Ambassador to Morocco, Marc Ginsberg; and early this decade it was instrumental in preparing a report meant to provide a legal basis for attacking Iran.

“If Modi could do such lobbying as Gujarat chief minister (2001-14), it is not difficult to surmise what he might be doing, at a much larger scale, when he India’s Prime Minister, especially when he found that the World Bank showed, in 2016, India slipping to the 130th position in Ease of Doing Business, Moody’s reaffirming its Baa3 issuer rating last year for India, saying the government’s efforts had not achieved conditions that would support an upgrade, and Pew began showing Modi’s popularity slowly sliding from 87% to 81% in 2016.

While the Gujarat insider didn’t have exact details of who all were hired to lobby for Modi over the last one year for his makeover, he claimed, they got enough indication starting with mid-2017 that “something was brewing”. Things began clearer in August with the appointment of S Aparna, an IAS officer of 1988 batch, who worked in the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO), as Executive Director, World Bank, to represent the “constituency of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka for three years.”

“Aparna was Modi’s choice in the World Bank. She wouldn’t have got the job without Modi’s direct approval”, the insider said, adding, “Ever since she was sent to Washington on deputation, the buzz was strong in the Gujarat Sachivalaya that this was done to get a feedback about things happening among lobbying circles around Modi and India in Washington.”
“An official close to Modi in Gujarat even commented, the first thing you would notice is: India’s ranking in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business would now drastically improve’. This exactly what happens. India’s World Bank ranking improved by a whopping 30 points, to 100”, the insider said.

As if this was not enough, a retired ex-IAS bureaucrat from Odisha, a batchmate of Modi’s top aides from Gujarat in PMO, was given a team of five persons and sent to Washington to ensure that nothing went wrong. Their mandate was, come what may, Modi should get clean chit from international agencies, especially when economists at home had begun to say that the Indian economy was in a shambles.

As expected, following World Bank, Moody’s upped India’s rating to Baa2 from Baa3, and changed its rating outlook to ‘stable’ from ‘positive’, the best in 13 years, going so far as to suggest that demonetization and Goods and Services Tax helped things stabilise. This was followed by 9% jump in Modi’s popularity in a Pew International survey, to 90%.

The Pew survey, which has come under criticism for speaking to just 2,464 respondents in India between February 21 and March 10, admits that though it’s “primary sampling units are urban settlements and rural districts stratified by region and urbanity”, and it’s sample was “disproportionately urban.”.

As for Moody’s, its methodology was questioned by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, it upgraded India’s sovereign rating after 13 years as ‘belated recognition’ of reforms undertaken, amidst facts coming to light that that Moody’s was fined in the US, in Europe and in Hong Kong for ‘rating fraud’ during the last year and a half.

In January 2017 Moody’s agreed to pay a fine of $864 million to escape criminal action for its inflated rating of banks and securities in US. In June, 2017 Europe’s markets watchdog imposed a penalty of 1.24 million Euros on Moody’s for “not adhering to the correct rating protocol”. And in April 2016, a Hong Kong tribunal upheld a penalty of 1.4 million HK Dollars on Moody’s Financial Service for similar reasons.

Courtesy: Counterview

Weekend Watch: Loving Vincent

November 18, 2017

Speaking Like Only Colours Do

If there is one artist in the history of art world who has left the longest and most cherished mark on the subsequent many generations of artists and humankind, undoubtedly it is none other than Vincent Van Gogh. In a tribute befitting to the spirit of Van Gogh himself, Loving Vincent brings alive parts of Gogh’s life on the silver screen through multitude of oil paintings, all animated in perfect sync with one-another. Loving Vincent is the world’s first fully painted film.

Loving Vincent starts with a scene from Starry Night coming down to the Café Terrace, also a painting that he painted in Arles in 1888 in a soft, dewy manner with its characters having the perfect expressions and changing colours in order to provide depth.

The very idea of having a film, frame by frame in oil paintings, and those paintings being painted, one brush stroke at a time on the screen, can be baffling for most of the creative workers, both painters and artists working to create magic. But the end result is breath-taking to say the least. As per the cinematographer, Tristan Oliver, in this guardian piece, the entire script was shot in live action in 14 days, on partial sets and in front of green screens at 3 Mills Studios in London. The footage was then given to a team of over 50 painters in Gdansk, who meticulously turned each frame into individual painting. By the end, the team had produced 65,000 frames in oil paint covering more than 850 canvasses.

Preview

This is an act of true love for someone as remarkable and endearing as Van Gogh, someone who longed for artistic recognition all his life. And even in the grave absence of it, kept painting day in and day out. In modern day art, when brush strokes have taken the place of multiple clicks on computer screens, this is a landmark attempt in the very way we are going to watch cinema.

Loving Vincent takes a simple errand of delivering Van Gogh’s last letter to his brother Theo and turns it into a plot where the postman’s son, Armand Roulin follows a memorial and investigative journey into the circumstances of his death. In an attempt to find out about his death, Armand becomes truly inquisitive about the personhood of Gogh. He takes us to the incident when Van Gogh feels delighted at the mere sight of the crow. In a world that is essentially trying to fit human beings in boxes, the loneliness of an artist is not overrated to say the least. However, through its own making, the film is asking the viewers to think and feel differently. The book, “Lust for Life”, a biographical novel written by Irving Stone on Gogh’s life takes this feeling to its depth and provides an insight into his life. Following passage describes it,

“First, we think all truth is beautiful, no matter how hideous its face may seem. We accept all of nature, without any repudiation. We believe there is more beauty in a harsh truth than in a pretty lie, more poetry in earthiness than in all the salons of Paris. We think pain is good because it is the most profound of all human feelings. We think sex is beautiful even when portrayed by a harlot and a pimp. We put character above ugliness, pain above prettiness and hard, crude reality above all the wealth in France. We accept life in its entirety without making moral judgments. We think the prostitute is as good as the countess, the concierge as good as the general, the peasant as good as the cabinet minister, for they all fit into the pattern of nature and are woven into the design of life!”
― Irving Stone, Lust for Life

The film, introduces this side of Van Gogh through his lesser known paintings and sketches. In a truly visually delightful journey, with the stars twinkling brighter than can be ever captured through camera and reflections appearing clearer in water than photographs, the film asks the viewers to explore that, that can’t be worded, only imagined and painted. It compels the viewers to feel a degree of compassion that is otherwise missing in today’s societies, by simple and yet grand gestures, like Gogh killing himself as he comes to know about the misery of Theo through Doctor Gachet.

A lot has been said since about Van Gogh’s life. But the film makes the audience grieve for the true loss that artists still feel by Van Gogh’s premature death, only if it can be called such!

However, in asking the question, “You want to know so much about his death, but what do you know about his life?” the film contradicts itself. Though it captures the philosophical essence of his death, it could have shed more light on the life that Van Gogh was, haunted by the demons of a ‘regular life’ and yet compassionately and continuously painting the sufferings of the working people, the regular ones, the ordinary ones. That being said, the film demands to be watched, may be multiple times over to grasp its full essence.

Loving Vincent is a riot of colours!

BJP Leader Warns Muslims: ‘Vote For My Wife And Party Or Face Consequences’

November 18, 2017

Polling for municipal bodies in UP will be held on Nov 22, 26 and 29, and the ruling BJP is pulling out all stops to win them.

In a chilling and open threat to Muslims, a local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader in Uttar Pradesh warned the community members to vote for his wife and party or be ready to face difficulties. Ranjeet Kumar Srivastava, outgoing chairperson of the Nawabganj Nagar Palika, was addressing a public meeting in support of his wife Shashi, who is contesting the civic body elections in Barabanki district, UP. Polling for various municipal bodies will be held in the state on Nov 22, 26 and 29. Results will be out on December 1.

“Yeh Bharatiya Janata Party ki sarkar hai, Samajwadi ki sarkar nahin hai…yahan par ja kar tum DM aur SP se apna kaam nahin karwa sakte ho…yahan par koi neta tumhari koi madad nahin kar sakta hai…dusri musibaten bhi tum par aa sakti hain…aaj tumhara koi pairokar Bharatiya Janata Party ke andar nahin hai (This is Bharatiya Janata Party’s government and not of Samajwadi Party…you cannot go to the DM [district magistrate] and the SP [superintendent of police] to get your work done…no leader can help you here…you can face other difficulties as well…today, you don’t have any advocate in the Bharatiya Janata Party),” Srivastava declared.

The sense of impunity and arrogance felt by BJP’s local leaders was clear from Srivastava’s threats. He went on to give this chilling ultimatum. “Agar hamare sabhasadon ko tumne baghair bhed bhao ke chunav nahin jitaya…agar Ranjeet Sahab ki patni ko tumne vote de kar ke chunav nahi jitaya to yeh doori jo tum banane ja rahe ho, ab agar yeh doori banegi to tumko Samajwadi Party bachane nahi aayegi. BJP ka shashankaal hai…jo kasht tumko nahi jhelne pade the, woh kasht tumko uthane pad sakte hain…(If you don’t vote for our candidates without discrimination…if you don’t vote for Ranjit Sahib’s wife, then you are distancing yourselves and the Samajwadi Party will not come to your rescue. This is BJP’s regime…you may face the problems in the future you have not faced so far),” he said.

“Muslims, I am asking you to vote for us and not begging in front of you. If you vote for us, you will remain happy, or else you will get to know about the difficulties you will face in the future,” he added.

Two Cabinet ministers of the state government – Ramapati Shastri and Dara Singh Chauhan – were reportedly present on the stage when Srivastava was threatening Muslim voters.

The elections of 16 nagar nigams, 198 nagar palika parishads and 438 nagar panchayats in 75 districts in the state are to be held. These civic body polls will be the first big test for Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and the BJP after sweeping to power in the state earlier this year riding on a Hindutva wave. The saffron party secured a three-fourths majority in the state assembly.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

The quiet battle for control of the internet

November 17, 2017

The recent and intensifying push by governments to promote a concept of “digital sovereignty” represents a real and rising threat to the internet as a force for good.

Wuzhen, May 23, 2017: Chinese Go player Ke Jie and other guests attend the opening ceremony of the Future of Go Summit before a match between him and Google’s artificial intelligence program AlphaGo in Wuzhen, east China’s Zhejiang province, May 23, 2017. Xu Yu/PA Images. All rights reserved.

Earlier this fall, on the morning of the 20th of September, Spanish police raided the offices of the organization in charge of managing the domain name commonly used by Catalonian websites, ‘.cat’. The ensuing seizure of the registry’s computers, arrest of its director for sedition, and deletion of domains promoting the October 1st independence referendum sound like a scene from some dystopian cyberpunk future.

This heavy-handed instance of online censorship by Spanish police is part of a growing focus by governments on controlling the twenty-first century’s public square, the internet.

Most internet users today take for granted their ability to instantly retrieve information and communicate across an open and secure, globalized web. However, the internet’s structure is continually evolving and regularly contested. Just because the internet has so far operated in line with principles inherited from its original creators, emphasizing interoperability and free expression, does not mean it always must or will.

Increased control of the internet’s global infrastructure by authoritarian state actors would, of course, lead to more fragmentation and more censorship.

In fact, the recent and intensifying push by governments to promote the concept of “digital sovereignty” represents a real and rising threat to the internet as a force for good.

China, the world’s most sophisticated online censor, will host the fourth iteration of its Wuzhen Summit this December. The Wuzhen Summit is China’s attempt to create an alternative to the Internet Governance Forum (an annual multi-stakeholder forum for global policy dialogue on internet governance issues) that reflects its state-led vision for the future of the internet.

In his keynote speech opening the 2015 Wuzhen summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping said “we should respect the right of individual countries to independently choose their own path of cyber development, model of cyber regulation and internet public policies, and participate in international cyberspace governance on an equal footing.” Increased control of the internet’s global infrastructure by authoritarian state actors would, of course, lead to more fragmentation and more censorship.

Proponents of cyber sovereignty are moving to expand the influence of bodies more amenable to their concept of internet governance, such as the International Telecommunication Union, a UN agency originally founded to coordinate global telegraph and telephone transmission protocols. Through a range of proposals on cybersecurity and other topics at an ITU conference this October, Brazil, Mexico, the Arab States, and a regional bloc formed by Russia and many former Soviet republics, all suggested that the ITU should expand its mandate into privacy-related issues.

The digital rights groups Article 19, Public Knowledge, and Access Now raised concerns about this development, stating that “any discussion of the regulatory or policy aspects of privacy must be driven by the public interest, which should be determined through a human rights framework. These discussions must be conducted in open and transparent forums. The ITU, however, is neither an open forum, nor one that is specialized to address privacy.”While the technicalities of internet governance may seem remote, boring, or trivial, its potential impact on key values like freedom of speech in today’s online world should not be underestimated.

As part of its #KeepItOn campaign, Access Now has documented 55 intentional disruptions of the internet or mobile apps to control what people say or do in 2016, in most cases by governments, and 61 disruptions over the first three quarters of 2017. Often, such as with the Egyptian internet outages in 2011 or Russia’s internet blacklist since 2012, states pressure their internet service providers in order to control citizens’ internet access and censor content. However, numerous infrastructure concentration points provide opportunities for the disruption of digital networks, and the further that governments’ tentacles reach into internet governance processes, the greater the likelihood they will pursue political goals by leveraging technical architecture in various ways.

Moreover, the very design of the internet’s structure is not neutral, but rather a reflection of values held by its creators emphasizing interoperability and free expression. This, of course, may be at risk to the extent that standards bodies are captured by actors promoting other values as the internet continues to evolve.

The further that governments’ tentacles reach into internet governance processes, the greater the likelihood they will pursue political goals by leveraging technical architecture in various ways.

Recent controversy surrounded the transfer in October 2016 of ultimate control over management of the domain name system, the internet’s “phone book,” from the US government to an international multistakeholder community made up of commercial actors, technical experts, academics, civil society, and governments. Dire warnings around the possibility of ICANN, the internet governance body in question, immediately falling under Chinese or Russian control have predictably not come true. However, ICANN’s assurance that it “is a technical organization and does not have the remit or ability to regulate content on the internet” also betrays a failure of imagination, assuming the young organization will always necessarily continue to operate as it has over its first nineteen years.

Domain name seizures are routinely carried out to enforce copyright laws for example, and the September raid by Spanish police of a domain registry in order to censor access to websites promoting Catalonian independence show that governments increasingly understand how technical architecture like the domain name system can also be utilized for political ends.

The key to sustaining healthy governance of the internet is promoting robust democratic voices within the multistakeholder communities shaping the internet’s evolving structure, in contrast to state-led visions of cyber sovereignty. These communities can protect internet governance bodies and processes from capture by actors with agendas inimical to the internet’s core values of interoperability and free expression. Another important step is formally integrating human rights impact assessments into the processes for reviewing new protocols and policies at internet governance bodies, such as Article 19 recently introduced for engineers working in Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and as ICANN moved towards in its adoption of a human rights bylaw in 2016.

Otherwise, it is possible a very different vision of the internet could become tomorrow’s reality.

Will Wright is a program officer for Russia and Eurasia at The National Endowment for Democracy.

Courtesy: Open Democracy

A military coup is afoot in Zimbabwe. What’s next for the embattled nation?

November 17, 2017

Nobody is safe from the rages of Zimbabwe’s First Lady, “Dr. Amai” Grace Mugabe. There was the young South African model Grace lashed with extension cords. 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe’s longtime and usually trusted ally Emmerson Mnangagwa, was next in the firing line: he was sacked because his supporters allegedly booed her at a rally.

President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace have become increasingly divisive figures in Zimbabwe. Reuters/Philimon Bulawayo

The consequences of her vengeance may have led to a coup headed by Zimbabwe’s army chief General Constantino Chiwenga, who is commonly perceived to be Mnangagwa’s protégé. But ex-freedom fighter Mnangagwa has his own presidential aspirations.

Mnangagwa has been exiled from the party in which he has served since he was a teenager. But he is not just skulking in the political wilderness. On arrival in South Africa he issued a statement calling those who wanted him out “minnows”. He promised to control his party “very soon” and urged his supporters to register to vote in the national elections next July.

As if to back Mnangagwa, on November 13 General Chiwenga announced that he and his officers could not allow the “counter-revolutionary infiltrators”, implied to be behind Grace Mugabe, to continue their purges.

Factions and purges

Chiwenga declared that the armed forces must ensure all party members attend the extraordinary Zanu-PF congress next month with “equal opportunity to exercise their democratic rights”. He flashed back through Zanu-PF’s history of factionalism, reminding his listeners that although the military “will not hesitate to step in” it has never “usurped power”. Chiwenga promised to defuse all the differences “amicably and in the ruling party’s closet”.

Although this airbrushed more than it revealed about the party’s rough patches when leadership vacuums appeared, the statement appeared more as a cautionary note than a clarion call to arms. It’s not often a coup is announced before it starts; but once in motion direction – and history – can change. Grace Mugabe may have unleashed a perfect storm and her own undoing.

Soldiers stand next to a tank on a road in Harare. Reuters/Philimon Bulawayo

All the “shenanigans” that have inspired the generals to consider a coup have set the stage for an extraordinary Zanu-PF congress this December instead of in the expected 2019: that is, before rather than after the July 2018 national elections.

This suggests some people were in a hurry to settle the succession issues for the president, who is now showing every one of his 93 years. Maybe Robert Mugabe won’t rule until he is 100-years-old. If not, and members of his family or party wanted to keep their dynasties alive, they had to work quickly lest some similarly inclined contenders are in their way.

These contenders include Mnangagwa and a slew of his “Lacoste” faction consisting of war veterans and the odd financial liberal. The best-known of these is Patrick Chinamasa. This former finance minister tried to convince the world’s bankers he could pull Zimbabwe out of the fire. He was demoted to control cyberspace and then fired. Perhaps he may make a comeback in the wake of the semi-coup.

The pro-Grace faction includes the members of Generation 40, or “G-40”. Many are well over 40. But in Robert Mugabe’s shadow they appear young, as does the 52-year-old First Lady. Without a base in the liberation-war cohort, they resorted to working with the Mugabe couple: sometimes their ideology appears radical, espousing indigenous economics and more land to the tillers.

If the history of their best-known member – the current Minister of Higher Education Jonathan Moyo – is indicative, however, they are pragmatic; or less politely put, opportunist.

But with Grace Mugabe sans Robert, they would have to muster inordinate amounts of patience and manipulation to steer the sinking ship to the shores of stable statehood and incorporate yet younger generations who cut their political teeth as Robert Mugabe’s rule faltered.

Perfidious ‘saviours’

Yet the possible plan for the upcoming congress – to create a third vice-president – appears not to move far beyond the cold hands of the old. Phelekezela Mphoko would be pushed to third vice-president status. Grace would be the second vice-president.

The current defence minister, Sydney Sekeramayi would be first vice-president and so, next in line for the presidential palace. He is a quiet but no less tarnished member of the Zanu-PF old guard; especially when one remembers the massacre of thousands of Ndebele people during the Gukurahundi.

When performing the calculus necessary to rectify Zimbabwe’s graceless imbalances, remember that Mnangagwa was perhaps the key architect of the nearly genocidal Gukurahundi, now chronicled in archival detail in historian Stuart Doran’s Kingdom, Power, Glory: Mugabe, Zanu, and the Quest for Supremacy. Among the scores implicated therein are the British, condemned by Hazel Cameron, another meticulous archivist, as exercising “wilful blindness” during what Robert Mugabe has dismissed as a “moment of madness”.

Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that many are suspicious of Mnangagwa’s relationship with the UK. Many suspect he has been swimming with perfidious Albion for a very, very long time.

Those waters, in the shadow of Mugabe’s heritage, will take a few more generations of hard political work to clear. It hardly seems propitious that a coup, and the same generation that has ruled since 1980, starts it off.

David B. Moore, Professor of Development Studies, University of Johannesburg

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Is Bitcoin Shariah Compliant?

November 17, 2017

Islamic finance is not just a business. It is, essentially, a system to ensure economic justice followed by economic growth. This is achieved by an array of transaction related features based on the Islamic economic laws. Two most prohibited features are interest and speculation. Being a career Islamic banker, I am often asked whether Fintech in general and bitcoin, cryptocurrency etc in particular are shariah compliant.

Fintech is easy to explain: It is the new technology and innovation that aims to compete with traditional financial methods in the delivery of financial services. The use of smartphones for mobile banking and investing services are examples of technologies aiming to make financial services more accessible to the general public. This sits perfectly well with Islamic finance as long as it’s fundamental principles are not breached. To that extent, Fintech is not a new product per se, it is simply a new delivery channel.

But bitcoins are different animals – and look pretty scary at the moment! This is why I was reluctant to express any opinion until there is more clarity. But last night I came across an article written by a certain Akash Anand on this subject in a well-regarded portal islamiceconomist.com which is run by an old and dear friend Dr Humayon Dar – a PhD in Islamic Economics from Cambridge University. What surprised me is the audacity of the author advocating a synergy between Blockchain-based system (bitcoin) and Islamic finance! No background of the author is found near his piece. From the language used, I guess he is a pure-techy. And as a matter of principle, pure-techies should refrain from writing on ideology-based financial systems like Islamic banking as much as Islamic bankers like me should not touch upon the topics related to cutting-edge technologies!

Anyway, let’s briefly examine the basic building blocks of this new currency which has been making headlines recently. The first distributed Blockchain was conceived by an anonymous person or group known as Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 and implemented the following year as a core component of the digital currency bitcoin! The concept itself was born in anonymity whereas full structural transparency is a core Islamic finance requirement. So it fails the test right at the root! The Blockchain is a public ledger that records bitcoin transactions. A novel solution accomplishes this without any trusted central authority!! Bitcoin is pseudonymous, meaning that funds are not tied to real-world entities but rather bitcoin addresses. And owners of bitcoin addresses are not explicitly identified.

The risks of dealing in bitcoin were laid bare in 2013 when Tokyo-based exchange Mt Gox collapsed after admitting it had lost the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars of investor funds. The currency’s earlier ties to gambling and criminal websites did not endear it to traditional investors.

Akash, in the article, bats for Blockchain technology because it “incorporates the [Islamic] principle of maslaha (social benefits of positive externalities) as it can potentially provide banking services to those unbanked segment of the population”. It is quite obvious that those who are “unbanked” among us are the ones who have no surplus money to bank! So when folks like Akash talk about brining that segment into the banking sector, they essentially mean trapping them by offering loans!

Ideological arguments apart, some of the Wall Street and the financial world titans have strong reservations against bitcoins:
In early September, the world’s largest bank JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon said that the currency “will not work” and said he would fire any JP Morgan staff who traded it. Speaking at a bank investor conference in New York, Dimon said, “The currency isn’t going to work. You can’t have a business where people can invent a currency out of thin air and think that people who are buying it are really smart.”

In November, CEO Tidjane Thiam of Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse airs similar views. ”Bitcoin presents a number of challenges. The first of them is really the anonymity,“ and calling the digital currency “as the very definition of speculation and the very definition of a bubble.”

Laurence Fink, founder and chief executive officer of BlackRock, Inc. that manages nearly $6 trillion of assets is not bullish either. At the Reuters Global Investment 2018 Outlook Summit in New York this month, he called bitcoin a “very speculative instrument. More importantly, it is an instrument that people use for money laundering”!

These three gentlemen are movers and shakers of global financial markets. Their words – rightly or wrongly – are taken as gospel truth. Traditional investors view bitcoin as opaque and highly speculative with potential to collapse even though so far this year bitcoin has soared nearly 580 percent – a meteoric rise not appreciated in the Islamic finance circles. Bitcoin surged on earlier this week to $6,487, recovering more than $1,000 after losing almost a third of its value in less than four days – nor is such a sudden fall acceptable in an ethical banking system!

The investors who are active and bullish on this digital currency have dodgy background. For instance, Novogratz, a former Princeton University wrestler, U.S. Army helicopter pilot, and Goldman Sachs Group partner, is among them. Novogratz worked at Fortress from 2002 to 2015, where he was a principal and ran its macro hedge funds. They grew to manage billions of dollars and made him a Wall Street star. But the funds were shut in 2015 following investment losses. Novogratz then retired from the firm. But he is now back with a bang; promoting and investing heavily in bitcoins!

Fiat currency (the paper currency we use without the gold backing) itself is causing devastation in global economy because Central Banks are able to print and circulate unlimited amount of money. The consequences of a widely acceptable digital currency – where no Central Bank or other regulatory authorities exist – can be catastrophic!

So my sincere advice to friends like Akash is to hold the verdict on bitcoin’s synergy with (and benefits for) Islamic finance. We have a long distance to cover before reaching a firm conclusion on this!

Courtesy: Two Circles

1...1,9501,9511,952...2,697 Page 1,951 of 2,697

Muslims Must Seize Every Opportunity to Reform Their Madrasas

Yogi Adityanath may be doing this for political reasons, but why should we blindly oppose the introduction of a superior quality of textbooks in our madrasas?

These are war crimes, says US delegation after visiting Rohingya camps in Bangladesh

The American lawmakers call on the premier came a day after they visited the Rohingya camps in Cox’s Bazar’s Kutupalang

Improved ratings? How Gujarat Babus in PMO “worked out” Strategy to Lobby with Washington Institutes: Insider

Weekend Watch: Loving Vincent

Speaking Like Only Colours Do

BJP Leader Warns Muslims: ‘Vote For My Wife And Party Or Face Consequences’

Polling for municipal bodies in UP will be held on Nov 22, 26 and 29, and the ruling BJP is pulling out all stops to win them.

A military coup is afoot in Zimbabwe. What’s next for the embattled nation?

Factions and purges

Perfidious ‘saviours’

Is Bitcoin Shariah Compliant?

JOIN OUR MAILING LIST

JOIN OUR MAILING LIST

Important Links

Other Links

CONNECT